The “mosquito plane” came flying over fast and low just as I was readying this morning for work. The “neeEEEEYOWWWWWWwwwwww” of the prop plane reminded me that I haven’t heard it buzzing over lately. That is most likely because of the drought. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t mosquitoes around, especially when you consider I live close to a navigable river, a number of bayous and some back bays and quite a few marshes.
All of that came back as I took to the field for work today. I went to a very nice house right on one of the marshes in Orange County, just a couple of “gator’s” tails away from the Neches River. As I got out to talk to a very nice gentlemen who was worried about my bald head getting burned — I left my straw Panama-fedora in the car — I had to bat away a few ‘skeeters. A couple of the pesky critters then decided they’d try to steal away with me inside my car as I was departing, but I dispatched them in pretty quick order.
Not that I am an expert on mosquitoes but I recognized the pesky ones assaulting me as salt marsh mosquitoes which are bothersome but not carriers of West Nile. Just which type of salt marsh species they were is beyond me for we have almost as many types of skeeters down here as we have boudain and etouffee recipes. There are about 50 different species of mosquitoes in my general vicinity, according to the Jefferson County Mosquito Control Division. People in these parts usually encounter about 12 of those species.
The mosquitoes of the salt marsh, rice field and Asian Tiger species are all known to be aggressive little biters. But most of the disease-carrying ones such as those flying around with West Nile Virus come from the Culex family.
Our county’s mosquito control folks cheerfully point out that folks move to the country seeking the “good life” away from the urban areas but sometimes forget that that the “good life includes snakes, alligators, rats, mosquitoes, and mosquito control aircraft coming over at 100 feet early in the morning or in late evening.”
Among the helpful hints that our JCMCD suggests for curbing mosquito populations at home include this note about bug zappers:
“Bug zappers are best placed in your neighbor’s yard so that the mosquitoes will go next door! Turn them off if the mosquitoes are heavy. If you do have one, don’t hang it right over the patio table – move it back from where you will be located.”
Our JCMCD has kind of a wicked sense of humor but they probably need it because where we live, mosquito control is a war that never ends. Yeah, we have a drought but that doesn’t mean your cabinets should be DEET-free zones, especially if you live in Southeast Texas.
Should agents of some future diabolical one-world government storm inside our homes and snatch away our fishing rods and reels — mine, when I get around to buying some more angling equipment again, will have to be snatched from my cold, dead hands — at least in Texas we may still catch plenty of those old catfish to keep us fat and happy. This is because the Texas Legislature passed a bill today that allows the practice of “noodling,”or hand-fishing.
Oklahoma noodling champ Lee McFarlin shows off a catch he made by hand. Luckily, he still has both of his arms.
Now granted, some Texans may have not known or cared that catching fish by hand in the state’s waters was illegal. But it is.The practice can land you a Class C misdemeanor offense featuring a $500 fine. And, I am uncertain as to this but if it is the same as other game violations in Texas, someone who commits such an act against wildlife also face a civil restitution fee. Now I don’t happen to know what the restitution value is for say a big ol’ blue cat, which can get big enough for you to call a wrecker to help pull it out, but the so-called “recovery value” for the animal can be found in the Texas Administrative Code:
” The recovery value of an individual fish shall be determined by adding the fish’s basic and recreational value for species which the Commission has designated as having recreational value for the purpose of civil restitution.”
Now on to the specifics:
“Recreational value for an individual fish is calculated by dividing the average value of an hour of fishing by the difference in total length between the state record fish and minimum hookable total length for that species and then multiplying that quotient by the total length in inches of the individual fish being valued, minus the minimum hookable total length for that species. This product is then adjusted for inflation by multiplying it by the quotient of the Consumer Price Index in the fiscal year the fish were killed, divided by the Consumer Price Index in the fiscal year the data were collected to determine the average value of an hour of fishing.”
That darned ol’ Consumer Price Index. It seems to just pop up everywhere.
Now let’s say that blue catfish that you and a buddy struggled with and which almost killed you both while pulling it out of an underwater stump weighed around 30 pounds. That’s pretty dad-burned big but hardly the record 121.5-pound monster that Cody Mullenix bagged in 2004 in Lake Texoma. Still, if you use the formula from the Texas Administrative Code then perhaps you better start pulling out that checkbook.
Even though the new law, if ultimately signed by our Goodhaired Gov. Rick, might save you some money one has to ask if the thrill of noodling is worth the loss of an arm?
Some old Cajun men once described to me the way they used to reach into underwater tree stumps and catch some enormous catfish. It sounded, to me, as a prime way to have one’s arm bit off, if not by a monstrous catfish, then perhaps by an alligator. Remember those daunting words from the brilliant songster Jerry Reed’s “Amos Moses,” a one-armed man who hunted alligators for a living?
“He could trap the biggest, the meanest alligator, and just use one hand/That’s all he’s got left ’cause an alligator bit him/Left arm gone clean up to the elbow.”
More and more nowadays the Tea Party seems as if its prime target is the Republican Party. Sooner or later the GOP faces possible vaporization of the Whig Party type if the TP frustration with the Republicans finally reaches a China Syndrome phase.
“Mr. Gingrich, who seems not to mind “radical change” in his domestic life, is simply wrong about the Boehner-Ryan Medicare plan,” Temple says in a press release.
Boom goes the dynamite.
Temple goes on to criticize Gingrich while damning Ryan and Boehner with faint praise:
“It is not “radical. It is tame as a pussy cat,” says Temple. ” The Boehner-Ryan Medicare plan is to fix Medicare and Medicaid sometime way off in the future, in the sweet bye and bye. While Obama, Gingrich, Romney, Pelosi and Reid favor the essential tyranny behind ObamaCare – forced purchasing of a product – Boehner and Ryan have, up to now, been content to fiddle while Rome burns with regard to Medicare.”
Great stuff. With friends like Temple, the Republicans sure don’t need enemies although they’ve got them up the yang.
So, let the political allies tear themselves to shreds. I’m going fishing. Well, maybe not. Here is why.
Scott Jennings, a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game warden, responded to a call back in March that a commercial fishing boat had pulled into Freeport with an 8-foot, short-fin mako shark. A Game Warden field reportstates that the crew told the Jennings that the shark had jumped into the boat’s stern as they were weighing anchor.
Yeah, right.
Incredibly, the shark flipped over the crewmen’s heads and landed forward beside the center console of the boat. The crew told the game warden that at one point, they had seriously considered abandoning the boat to the shark.
The report goes on to say that the shark couldn’t be removed from the boat without it being harmed so the game warden called up National Marine Fisheries Service agent Charles Tyer, who arranged the purchase of a “federal highly migratory species permit so that they could legally land the shark.”
Now that’s one hell of a fish story and a lot more fun to relate than the continuing soap-opera-like squabbles between the Republicans and the Tea Partiers.
What a handsome fellow this Beacon, decked out with a flag kerchief and a U.S. Marshal’s badge. You can print out a trading card with Beacon provided you don’t have a photo editing program guaranteed to drive you into running fits — what my Dad used to call something dogs did when they went crazy. I never saw a dog into running fits, by the way.
Beacon failed "guide dog" school because of a fondness for chasing squirrels. But I mean, who can blame the fella? His loss is the US Marshal's Service gain as an explosive sniffer.
I never saw a dog with a badge, well, not a four-legged kind until my first news assignment with then el presidente Jorge W. Bush. The dog was, if I remember correctly, an ATF dog-agent-dog and had a nice badge hanging from his neck in a leather case. I didn’t even have a badge to wear that time. I didn’t need no stinkin’ badges! Later when on a couple of occasions I was a local pool reporter I had a stinkin’ badge made out of cardboard. I still have a couple of them. Well, one is cardboard and the other is cardboard with a picture of Jorge driving his “pick-em-up truck” on one side and the White House, if I remember correctly, on the other. The badge is laminated. Ain’t I something?
Dogs are about the best thing with which one could associate except a good girlfriend (lady friend, female friend, I should maybe say that I now am age 55.) The latter is especially true as my dear, late friend Waldo Miller used to say as long at the lady “drives your pickup for you and feeds your dog.” I always had to add as long she would also open your gate for you. I learned this living out in the country on Kingtown Road and had to either open the lock at the end of the heavy chain on my gate or have someone else to do it. But I am getting way off course.
I love dogs. I have had trouble with a few, mostly little farts like the one who used to live next door to Waldo’s place when we were in high school. This little mutt would come out and sink its teeth into my ankle. It’s owner was a lawyer who was off and on our hometown’s district attorney. I’d complain about the little dog but mainly just inquire if it had its rabies shots. It had supposedly.
There is no doubt why TV, especially local TV news audiences love stories about police dogs which are turned into as much human as is possible without giving them a credit card. We are a society which has long looked at animals, especially domestic ones, through an anthropomorphic lens. (Thanks so, so, much to the Beaumont Public Library Reference Librarian, who quickly came up with this word I was trying to remember but couldn’t. You rock!)
One peculiarity of modern news media is making police dogs into “K-9 officers.” I mean, it’s cute and all. And it’s police lingo which especially young reporters get hooked into early and will not shed unless they have a well-meaning but mean ol’ editor with a dislike for lingo. I covered the police beat quite a lot in my years as a reporter. I have to admit that it took quite awhile to get rid of an indirect quote from an officer who says a victim was “transported” by “Lifeflight” or who was “Lifeflighted” as opposed to just writing that the injured or wounded person was flown by medical helicopter to such and such a hospital.
Thus, “Officers and K-9 units, searched for hours.” That is okay if the K-9 units included a human and a canine. But to consider a dog as a “K-9” unit sounds odd if you think about calling old “Beacon” above, a unit.
“That unit sure can sniff out bombs.”
“Have you ever seen a unit strike such a handsome dog pose?
“Will you please get someone over here pronto to clean up the crap just taken by that unit?”
I have known a few police officers who trained and patrolled with dogs and would have just as soon spent their entire career riding the roads with their four-legged, friends. Dogs don’t tell you their dating problems, not usually at least. Dogs don’t mind if you skipped a shower after an all-night bender unless you are teetering over the edge on your job. I used to work across the street in a small town where one of the police officers had a well-trained black Lab that was just remarkable going after lime-green tennis balls scrubbed with crack. I never actually saw the dog, whose name I have now forgotten, work catching those who transported weed or cocaine up U.S. 59 north of Houston. But Don, the cop who worked across the street from my office, would let me know whenever the black Lab would make a good score.
Personally, I think the so-called “war on drugs” is a waste of time. That is, at least a good portion of it. I think marijuana should be legalized. Other drugs should be carefully examined for their legality or illegality. This “war” has caused so many lives to be ruined, ended, it has resulted in so much prison space needed for bad people, not sick or addicted people, to go missing.
That’s just me, though. I have a tremendous respect for the vast majority of the police officers in state, federal and local governments who risk their lives whether their threats come from drugs, greed, stupidity, insanity, politics, terror, or whatever. I include the “K-9 units” even if they are just dogs and live a dogs life.
I hope the dogs go home just as safely as the guys and ladies who wear the badges return home each day. That’s about all I have to say today. Hope you all, both two, four or however many legged people read this, have a great weekend as well. Wuff!
At times I wish the pace of this old world was a little bit slower. I suppose that is a sign that I need a vacation away from everything, the TV and Internet included.
You may hear older folks or even those people who are not so old wish for “simpler times.” I suppose when I was a kid, in the early to mid 1960s things were quite a bit simpler than today, but they weren’t all that much simpler or even “the good old days” for many. I think I first heard of Vietnam when I was 7 or 8 years old. Not too much later, that piece of ground in Southeast Asia would come to an omnipresence in our society until at least the time I had enlisted in the military. Growing up with a draft, with a war killing tens of thousands of young people, some of whom you knew, was not at all the good old days and weren’t particularly simple.
Then, pretty much all of my life I have known about “the bomb” although it seemed for the most a real and looming threat for the first 30 or so years of my life.
Yet, times were in some respects simpler when I was a kid. I can remember watching water rushing through a culvert after a heavy rain and staying entertained for a good half hour watching the sandy brown liquid runoff run all which a ways.
We didn’t have a phone in our house until we moved into our grandmother’s place, after she died. The phone, one of those rotary dial versions, was also on a party line with the older lady who lived in our then-deceased Uncle Algie and Aunt Ada’s house across the field. Unless there was an emergency Mrs. Irons wasn’t about to get off the phone until she had finished telling someone how she made her fig preserves. We had TV of course. It came in only two colors in our house, black and white. It seems there was always some kind of record player around and a radio. I was kind of techno nut even back then. I guess if I hadn’t been so lazy I might have built a ham radio. But I remember when I was about 10, my parents bought me a fairly nice, though not terribly expensive radio with AM/FM and two shortwave bands.
For as long as I had the radio, up to my early high school days, you couldn’t hear much on FM because there weren’t very many FM stations in our area. But I learned a good bit that prepared me for this vastly more complicated world today by listening to shortwave stations, including those from Communist lands such as Radio Havana.
There was a time when I was going to college that I didn’t pay much attention to TV, I didn’t even have one where I lived. The only time I’d watch was when I was on duty at the firehouse. I’d listen to the local radio stations where several of my close friends were deejays. Of course, I listened to music. A good many friends had very high-powered sound systems. We used to scare the cows away when I lived in the country and one of my friends would bring his monster Klipsch speakers over for a party.
From the time when my friend Bruce showed my how to write with his computer in 1989 until present time it seems I have learned a little more technology each day and have seen the techno world explode into one new thing and another. Along with cell phones that record videos and take pictures and allow Internet access to the cable TV networks that provide the so-called “24-hour news cycle,” the complex world has become even more complex. The world is real-time 24/7.
The president of the U.S. watched live from the White House on Sunday as a U.S. Navy SEAL commando team raided and killed the man who is responsible for a number of terrorist acts including ones on Sept. 11, 2001, in which two loaded passenger planes were crashed as missiles into the World Trade Center in New York, another jet was crashed into the Pentagon and a third went down in a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought terrorists for control of the plane, killing all passengers and terrorists. More than 3,000 Americans were killed that day.
Less than 24 hours later, a DNA test confirmed that one of those killed in the SEAL team raid which happened in Pakistan was indeed Osama bin Laden. Although most of the raid was videotaped, the president decided not to show the world the death pictures of bin Laden, fearing the photos would inflame passions of would be terrorists. Shortly afterward, a whole big deal erupted by both friend and foe of President Obama (no relation to Osama, Mamma) over whether the pictures of the dead terrorists should be shown. Now much of the world is complaining about the pictures not being shown.
Now, again in real time, we once more we are dropped down into the vastly complicated world and since I am back to where I started, perhaps the self-analysis helped me some, but I still need some time off and a chance to disconnect from most of the world’s literal USBs. Perhaps I can go somewhere with the only sounds existing come from wind gently blowing through the treetops, water lapping through rocks on a river or large creek, or perhaps be startled by the hoot of an owl nearby or be amused by the dueling calls of whippoorwills. Time to cut off the phone and the Internet and the 24/7 cable.
Of course, I’ll take my digital cameras. ‘Cause you still need pictures or even a video of it so it can be a reminder that there are such places to getaway on a day just like this one in which that ever circling drama known as life threatens your sanity.
